Pattern Name and Number Representation

If a bit pattern represents an integer in unsigned binary then the name of that pattern is the same string of characters as the base 16 representation of the integer.

Converting between base 16 representation and base 2 representation is easy because 16 is a power of 2. Another base where this is true is base 8 (octal), since 8 is 2³. In base 8, the digits are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. The binary equivalents of the digits are 000, 001, 010, 011, 100, 101, 110, 111.

Each place in a base 8 representation corresponds to a left shift of 3 places in the bit pattern of its binary representation.

Be careful: in some computer languages (Java and C, for instance) a number written with a leading zero signifies octal. So 0644 means base eight, and 644 means base ten, and 0x644 means base sixteen.